


Return

by redcandle17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 22:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8419573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: Jon Snow is dead, but he has a choice to make.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isilloth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isilloth/gifts).



He felt weightless and emotionless, floating higher and higher. He looked down and saw a black-clad figure in a widening pool of red against white. Blood and snow, he recognized dimly. 

_Snow._

He heard the sound spoken as a child’s derisive taunt, and as the solemn intonation of a man, and finally as the caw of a raven.

He heard the howl of a wolf, and he remembered a ghost-white direwolf with red eyes. _Ghost_. As the name came to him, so did a rush of feelings. He felt cold air on his nose and cold stone beneath his paws. He smelled blood and man and man smells, and more faintly he smelled a foul wrongness.

The howl became a chorus. It was the howl of five wolves, a mournful song sung by his brothers and sisters. _Bran,_ he thought. _Summer, Greywind, Lady, Nymeria, and Shaggydog howled like that after his fall._ He would have howled with them too if he could, but no sound came when he tried. He was alone, distanced from them in ways he could not understand. He was one of them but not.

“Jon Snow.”

The name was a whisper at first. A whisper that repeated again and again.

“Jon Snow.”

It sounded dark and red. He wondered how he could see a sound, and just thinking it made him feel lighter and made the sound more distant.

“Jon Snow!”

A woman’s voice, urgent and commanding. 

_The red woman,_ he thought. Always gowned in red, with red hair and red eyes and red lips, but pale skin. The witch Melisandre. She’d warned him that his enemies were close. 

Pain came to him suddenly. He felt cold knives stabbing into him, but the pain was not so great as the feeling of shock and betrayal. 

The wolf was in pain too. His body ached from desperately dashing it against the heavy wooden door. But finally the hinges gave away and the door fell. 

The red witch was astride the dark-clad body in the snow. The traitors surrounded her, knives and swords in hand, but some invisible force kept them back. He could see them struggling against it, could hear them muttering prayers to the old gods and new. 

One of them surged forward, knife raised high, but then the wolf was there, snapping at him and forcing him to retreat. The wolf stalked around the red woman and the cold body, baring his teeth at those who threatened them. 

“Jon Snow! Jon Snow, come back! If we lose you to the darkness too, it will be the end of us all.”

_Good,_ part of him thought. _Why not._ His noble father and his brave brother had both lost their heads, murdered by Lannisters, Freys, and Boltons, and then his sisters had been forcibly married to their enemies. There was no justice or fairness in this world - why should he remain a part of it?

But he remembered playing monsters-and-maidens, him and Robb battling with wooden swords to save little Sansa and her friend Jeyne. He remembered comforting Arya and teaching her the lessons Ser Rodrik taught him. He remembered watching Bran climb the tallest tree in the godswood, and helping to bathe Rickon to spare the poor nursemaid a few bites. 

He remembered Samwell Tarly, afraid of his own shadow, but brilliantly keen of mind and deeply loyal. He remembered the Old Bear and Donal Noye and Qhorin Halfhand and even Mance Rayder. He remembered Val and the baby. 

He remembered standing in a weirwood grove and swearing an oath. He could not end his watch now, could not leave things as they were.

There was the feel of a heat so hot it should have burned his lips. He gasped and drew in a breathful of cold air. Two pairs of red eyes were watching him. 

Jon ruffled Ghost’s fur and nodded his head to the red priestess Melisandre. Somehow he knew, deeply and instinctively, that his true battle was only now beginning.


End file.
